


the lesion

by LT_Aldo_Raine



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s01e06 Bastogne, Healing, M/M, Pre-Slash, scar adoration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 19:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20376760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LT_Aldo_Raine/pseuds/LT_Aldo_Raine
Summary: Sometimes, when his hand hovers just before the medic’s mouth, cradled between Gene’s own palms, Babe wonders if the raven-haired man is going to kiss the scar.OR: Gene continues to check on Babe's wounded palm after he wraps it in Bastogne.





	the lesion

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't posted in a while as I've been traveling and am finishing up my dissertation this month before I move back to America. That being said, I've got a few longer fics in the works and hope to get them out relatively soon. In the meantime, I hope y'all enjoy this little piece. <3

The scar is almost completely healed now—the jagged edges a little smoother, the line not quite as puffy. What was once violently purple and blue, crusted with crimson flakes of dried blood, has settled into a soft pink, barely distinguishable from the pale skin of his palm. Babe doesn’t mind the scar, but he regrets the memories of how he got it. It had been a shock to the redhead’s system to witness Gene—the medic of all medics, the coolest and calmest head Babe had ever known—finally start to space out in Bastogne. Not that it hadn’t happened to everybody else once or twice (or semi-permanently in Buck’s case), its just that Babe thought Gene was untouchable.

Days later in that stupid foxhole out on the line, Gene had taken Babe’s hand, cleaned it and wrapped it in a blue cloth, and Babe’s heart had fluttered a little with the worst thing of all: hope. Hope that Gene was back to normal. Hope that the medic was once again as unflappable as he seemed to be. _Had the Doc ever even been hit?_ Babe speculates about these things, you see.

Over the next two weeks, Gene checked on Babe’s hand as part of his regular rounds, the same way he monitored Randleman’s chronic cough or Toye’s trench foot (before he and Guarnere got hit and that suddenly wasn’t a problem anymore). Even after they moved off the line and out of the Bois Jacques, it seemed that any time Gene had a second to spare or he’d happened across Babe at chowtime, the medic would inquire about the redhead’s flesh wound, capturing Babe’s hand (now unbandaged) and running the tips of his (always, _always_ cold) fingers over Babe’s scar.

Babe stopped shivering at the sensation after the first five days or so.

Sometimes, Gene holds Babe’s hand so tenderly, bringing it close to his face to examine the damage, and Babe can feel the medic’s breath skate across his palm, warm and moist, a welcome relief from the cold which had settled eternally in his bones, and it is all Babe can do not to whine low in the back of his throat. Sometimes, when his hand hovers just before the medic’s mouth, cradled between Gene’s own palms, Babe wonders if the raven-haired man is going to kiss the scar. A blessing. A home remedy. Kiss it, make it better.

Gene never does, and Babe never stops wondering.


End file.
